


The Two Year Wake

by lawsontl



Series: Exhumed [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Children of Earth Compliant, Children of Earth Fix-It, House of the Dead Radio Play Spoilers, Ianto Jones: Not Dead, Miracle Day Spoilers, Multi, Shrouded Comic Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawsontl/pseuds/lawsontl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after a race of alien crackheads takes Ianto Jones' life, he's forced to deal with another inconvenient situation: people have stopped dying, and the planet is eventually going to run out of coffee. Or, "How a man who's not supposed to be alive deals with all those people who are supposed to be dead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 51stCenturyFox (LJ) betas at the speed of awesome. You don't need to have seen "Miracle Day" to understand this, but if you have, you'll see right through my efforts to work out gaps I saw in the plot. Fair use intended. I only own the OCs and the plot. First two parts of the series already posted on my LiveJournal ([Exhumed](http://lawsontl.livejournal.com/32133.html) | [Last Respects](http://lawsontl.livejournal.com/35706.html)) and getting copied here shortly. Pays to read them first.

"Evan, have you heard?"

Debbie Connor's auburn curls bounced with excitement as she ran into the Espress Lane, a gust of rain-soaked spring air following her through the door. Ianto gave his boss a smart salute, enjoying the cool breeze until it was overtaken by the espresso machine's steam wand.

"Have I heard what?" It had been more than two years since he'd fled Cardiff, eighteen months since the House of the Dead nightmare, and his life in Toronto had become downright routine. Ianto had settled so comfortably into life as Evan Hughes that he instinctively answered to the name. Although he still kept an eye out for anything suspicious, he'd also relaxed his security standards. His blinds were open more often than not. He'd reduced scans of his flat to a biweekly process, in part because it was an excess of paranoia, and in part because the batteries on the old Torchwood gear were running low. They weren't the sort of thing you nipped out to the megamart to replace.

He finished steaming the milk for a latte and faced Debbie, who was now staring at him impatiently from the entrance to the break room.

"It's a miracle!"

He gave it careful consideration before replying. "Danceable if a bit formulaic. Definitely not one of Culture Club's best."

She laughed, coming around the stainless steel counter as she pulled her hair up into a clip. "It's been all over the news. Something's happened. For the last 24 hours, no one has died."

"Well, it is Toronto. Not exactly a wretched hive of scum and villainy." He grabbed a cup from the stack and popped a sleeve over its middle.

"No, I mean _no one_. Nowhere on the planet. Really nowhere, too." She waved her travel mug around perilously as she topped her refill with nutmeg. "Not like that thing with the kids chanting."

Midway through pouring the milk, Ianto stopped breathing as his skin was bathed with gooseflesh.

"Evan?"

He swallowed hard, trying to loosen the knot of muscle threatening to strangle him. "That's... unusual."

"No kidding." She snatched the remote from under the counter and shut off the house music. Mounted on one of the rusty red painted walls at the other side of the shop was a television, and she switched it from a dance competition to a news broadcast. Some talking head was opining on a subject called "Miracle Day."

Scientists are baffled but recommending caution. Because we do not know the cause, we cannot be certain how long it...

The man waiting for the latte gaped at the screen, "It's for real? I thought the guy next to me on the bus was practising for a play or something."

Debbie nodded enthusiastically, turning up the volume. The lady curled up in the worn plaid easy chair put down her book and turned her attention to the television.

Something didn't feel right to him, but Ianto tore himself away so he could finish the drink without getting burnt. Of course it didn't feel right, but strange things happened all the time that had nothing to do with aliens or rifts in time and space. "How about one of our blueberry muffins to go with your coffee, sir?" He pasted on a smile as he handed over the cup. "Nothing to lose now, right?"

His mind raced as he bagged not just one but two muffins. _It's not your job to care. That's what Torchwood is for. Well, UNIT if it's global, but we'll be... they will be working it, too. And that's if it's even true, not an overreaction to a statistical anomaly._ "There you go. Would you like anything else?" He chatted amiably with the man as he rang him out, though he could have been speaking Russian for all Ianto actually paid attention to the conversation.

"So, Debbie," Ianto asked as he pushed the cash drawer closed. He waited for the sound of the bells clanging on the exit door before continuing. "You mentioned the kids chanting. How'd people take it here?"

"Oh, God, it was so creepy," she replied. She wasn't looking at him, too focused on polishing the refrigerator case, but she shivered for dramatic effect. "I have to admit, it's the best-organised flash mob ever."

"A flash mob?"

This prompted her to stop, and she peered around the stainless steel unit, face contorted in comic bewilderment. "You were living in a cave back then, admit it. Hand me the steel polish." The doorbells rang and a silver-haired lady in a pink tracksuit hobbled in on too-high heels.

"Afternoon, Mrs. Nash!" he shouted, then, in a lower voice as he handed Debbie the can, "I told you, I was in hospital from the accident when all that happened." He stepped behind the register. "The usual skinny cappuccino to keep that gorgeous figure?"

Debbie bowed her head and smirked, rubbing at the glob of baby formula an enthusiastic two year old had lobbed onto it shortly after he'd opened the shop. A few minutes later, they had the place to themselves again, more or less. The man in far corner of the sitting area had returned to his texting, and the woman at the other side was busy flipping through an outdated copy of Vogue. Ianto idly began wiping the steam off his lenses with a bar mop as Debbie perched on the counter across from him.

"So you really don't know?" she asked, heels impatiently tapping at the shelf beneath her.

"I was rather distracted at the time." _And angry. Mostly angry._

"Well, the day after it stopped, some French teenagers admitted planning it." She scooted backwards, getting comfortable while he leaned against the opposite counter. "They found evidence on YouTube of practice runs in a few cities. Facebook posts setting the times. Even SMS messages turned up once the phone companies agreed to release the data."

 _Thorough._ He pretended to be shocked. "But I thought it affected the entire world?"

"Not really, but they..." She nodded at the newscaster. "...Always think if it's not happening in the First World, it's not happening at all. Once people got past the panic, they realised that in the Third World, especially really remote areas, it hadn't been happening."

"Less media access," he agreed. _And lots of tyrants to scare their people into denying anything was wrong in their perfect little dictatorships._ "Whoa."

"No kidding. But you know what really scared me about it?"

"What's that?" he asked, leaning in.

She lowered her voice. "How governments reacted. Some knees got seriously jerked out of joint."

"Like?"

"Kids in the UK were being rounded up for vaccinations. Evidently, chanting in unison is caused by a virus." She made air quotes around the last word, heels still tapping an annoyed rhythm on the counter's frame. "Lots of cities cut off local water supplies, claiming they were contaminated with hallucinogens. Religious groups got investigated. Coaches and teachers were questioned."

He remembered that part all too well. It was more difficult than usual to keep the anger from returning while he played dumb, but he soldiered on. "Sounds like they were grasping at straws."

"They were, and I get that, but what I don't get is why people bought into it. You'd think there would have been massive protests, at least more than those groups who protest just because it's Tuesday."

Realising he'd towelled his glasses dry four times over, he slipped them back in place and turned his attention to his neck, rubbing out the tension building there. "People naturally gravitate towards any reasonable solution to chaos." Debbie shrugged agreement, clearly not pleased even if she accepted a truth he'd relied on so often back in Cardiff. "So, what of the kids who admitted organising it?"

"I don't know. I heard they were going to get some sort of punishment for inducing mass hysteria, but―"

"―It sort of just disappeared from the radar once they'd come forward?"

"Yeah."

 _Possibly relocated with new identities. More likely dead so they can never expose the cover-up._ An extended blink was the only outward sign of how disgusted he felt. "And now, no one's dying."

"Bit tougher to arrange through social media, that." She stared at the television for a moment then turned back to him. "Do you think it's a miracle miracle?"

Ianto considered his words carefully. They'd talked about a lot on the job―Debbie didn't tolerate silence for long―but politics and religion had stayed on the sidelines where they belonged. He had a feeling that wasn't going to be true much longer. "I don't believe in miracles, but I don't know what else to call it just yet." _The singularity? Is this when everything changes?_

Biologists and zoologists have confirmed that initial tests on major animal species show normal life functions. The situation appears to be isolated to humans. For more on the subject, we take you to...

"It's huge, though, if it's true."

"Much bigger than us," he agreed. It was the sort of thing that would have had them all in the Hub no matter what the hour, furiously checking and cross-checking, trawling the media, setting all of their sensors to the broadest scans possible. Gwen would be frowning, Jack dissembling...

The urge to do something, anything, was almost overwhelming, but so was the urge to protect himself. Ianto pushed away from the counter, spying a stack of magazines that needed straightened. "I think we should focus on what we do best, saving the world one cup at a time."

"Yeah," Debbie replied with a bitter laugh before brightening. In fact, I'll bet immortal people need even more coffee, what with all that living."

 _That's an understatement._ "Then we'd best get brewing before funeral homes catch on and convert to Starbucks franchises."

Debbie's optimism was the only thing that kept Ianto focused on work for the rest of his shift. Every time he allowed himself to ponder the ramifications, _Are the affected people like Jack? Or Owen?_ , he'd hear Debbie working with a customer, chatting about this supposed immortality like it was nothing more significant than a new fashion trend. And that was the right attitude to have. For the first time since Torchwood had opened his eyes, he was back on the sidelines. He had to react and adapt; he could not control.

Yet, after his shift ended, he found himself sitting on an empty planter outside one of Toronto's cybercafes. All those months of flawless self-discipline, not even the slightest peek into what he'd left behind, and a single day's news had him considering throwing it all away. But he had to know. What was the story in Cardiff? How had they explained the explosion in the Plass? How was Rhiannon coping with the fallout?

Of more immediate importance, was Gwen okay? She, of all people, knew just how bad not dying really was, no matter how shiny it looked on the surface. Unless something horrible had happened with her pregnancy, she'd be losing her mind at the idea of her child facing anything like Jack's curse. No doubt she'd have Torchwood all over it, because, of equally little doubt, she'd have rebuilt _something_. She was too stubborn to let them bully her into submission. If she hadn't been able to take the reins officially after UNIT finished the clean-up, then she'd have set up something underground.

So, really, what harm would it do to reassure himself about the situation? With a little time spent in a few reliable conspiracy forums, he could have answers without even attempting to access Mainframe or the remote copies of the Torchwood apps. He could use his spare identity's credit card to pay for the use of the computer, and he should be able to find something open source to mop up most of his trail. What little trace he'd leave behind would be overwhelmed by this thing they were calling Miracle Day.

But as traffic hummed and honked behind him, he didn't move from his seat on the edge of the concrete planter. Instead, he picked idly at a dead petunia, watching as people came and went. Children. So many children. Most of them the right age to have been controlled by the 456. None of them aware that the man they were passing had died in a desperate bid to keep their government from shipping them off to a bunch of alien stoners.

When the lights in the shop finally went out, he tossed his cup of cold coffee into the bin and walked away.

**

"This Miracle thing sucks." Ianto found it less disturbing that Eric had started using the same title case emphasis as the news readers than the fact that his co-worker was holding his Nintendo DS in such a way that it seemed like the black box had sprouted blonde dreadlocks.

"And this," Debbie said, pressing down on Eric's arm, "is a work meeting."

"I'm on my own time!" he grumbled even as he snapped the case closed and slapped the unit on the scratched veneer surface of the table they were sharing.

"No, you're on the clock."

"Yeah, but this isn't my regular shift, so it may as well be."

Debbie's head sagged into her hands, gripping her skull like she was trying to hold her brain in. Normally, she was excellent at dealing with Eric's lack of social graces, but her neighbourhood had been one of the toughest hit by the upswing in vandalism post-Miracle, and she'd not been getting much sleep.

"It's not likely to encourage customers to linger over a scone," Ianto agreed, nodding to the empty sitting area. Not that anyone would be there at the moment, since the shop was closed, but the point was made nonetheless. Three employees was practically a crowd.

"God, I know," Debbie sighed. "Like we need anything else to cut into sales."

"Yeah, um, speaking of needing, I need more hours."

Debbie glared at Eric. "Weren't you the one just complaining about this meeting for which you are getting paid?"

"I had to make a special trip for this. A half hour barely covers bus fare."

Sometimes Eric really reminded Ianto of Owen. Other than the fact he was younger, blonder, and far less brilliant. And alive.

"The hand sanitizer dispensers should boost their confidence," Ianto interjected with a shrug.

"Right-o, Evan. In fact, Debinator, I bet we could seriously increase sales if we closed the shop up in a bubble. 'Espress Lane: not incubating the apocalypse, try our new sterile roast!'"

Ianto snorted even as Debbie gave a begrudging smile. "Okay, so, the police department is increasing patrols. In some neighbourhoods. Not mine, but..." she grumbled under her breath, "but we want to take care of them. Owners said if an officer comes in, plain old coffee is free. We can give them a 50% discount on anything else."

"We could replace our aprons with hazmat suits!"

"I have a question," Ianto jumped in again, trying to help Debbie keep things on track.

"Yes?" she asked gratefully.

"Have the owners suggested an official 'Espress Lane' viewpoint on the Miracle for when we discuss it with customers?"

"I think people are smart enough to know when something is our own opinion," Eric said.

"But what we say represents the store, so it's probably best to say things that aren't likely to upset the customers… or the people who pay us," Ianto replied.

"Good one, Evan, I'll ask."

Eric made butt kissing noises at him, but Ianto just leaned over and mock-whispered, "We should see if they can have our logo put on the hazmat suits."

"Awesome!"

"Boys!" They both snapped to attention. "Ideas for increasing business?" Eric raised his arm, waving it vigorously.

"Yes, Hermione?"

"Open the shop up to gaming groups."

"You can't do that on campus? In the dorms or empty classrooms?"

"No one's got rooms that are big enough, and the university has given up most of the extra space for people researching the Miracle. With this many Smiths slithering around, I'm starting to think I should've taken the red pill."

"Sadly, I know exactly what he means for once. Do you?" Debbie asked Ianto, and he nodded. He did have a vague idea. He hadn't had a chance to see the films, but the references had been plentiful when he was scanning the results of Toshiko's hacker trackers. "I've seen you play, Eric. You're not exactly quiet."

"That's console gaming. This is old school. Boards, dice, miniatures. One night a week."

"Trial run. Wednesdays after seven because we're totally deserted. I expect massive amounts of java will be sold."

"The spice shall flow."

"What?" they asked in unison.

"Philistines." Eric laughed at them.

"Evan, you're still running the highest count in positive customer comment cards." Ianto nodded. "And Eric, you still have the most negative cards." Eric punched the air. "However, you've also got the best sales per shift, and your drawer is always exact. You'll last another week on the island."

"I live to serve."

Ianto snorted.

"So, are we done?"

She checked her notes. "Yup. We're done. Go raid a dungeon."

"Actually, I'm volunteering over at the hospital. Though I guess that's kind of a dungeon."

"You're what?"

"My roomie's a premed, and things are really jumping over there. He hooked me up to help out."  
"Seriously. You?"

"I have a soft side." At their shared look of shock, he added, "Fine. Their server guy was in a wreck, should be dead but isn't. He's also not exactly conscious. So they promoted their best desktop guy to his job, but he needs hands, and anyone who knows the difference between a register and a registry has been scooped up to work with the medical panels. So, even though I'm not done with school, they're going to let me grope and fondle the network!" He waggled his fingers with an evil grin. "Excellent resume fodder. Hasta mañana."

Debbie locked the door behind Eric, setting the roller shades so they would be blocking the sun in the morning. "Thanks for staying late. Since Jenny left for grad school, I feel like we've been taking advantage of you."

"So you've mentioned," Ianto replied with an amused smirk. He dragged the mop and bucket out of the storage closet and restarted the closing chores they'd interrupted for the after-hours team meeting.

"I know, I know, it's not my fault they wouldn't let us replace her, but I still feel like it's unfair how many hours you're working."

He shrugged, squeezing a healthy amount of cleaner into the bucket. "You can always give more hours to Eric. I hear he wants them." Pulling out the spigot, he cranked the tap open and began the slow filling process.

Debbie snorted a laugh, but it faded into a sigh. "What good are these?" she asked, holding up a pair of plastic frames that normally lived on the counter in front of the jars of display beans. They were certificates from Time Out and Toronto Life, proudly declaring Espress Lane had been voted best coffee. "We bust our butts to put out a good product. It's way better than Timmy's or Starbucks, but they have lines out the door, and we're barely staying afloat."

"We're not as close to the campus, and they have more buying―"

"--more buying power. I know. Rhetorical." She rubbed her eyes. "So what's your opinion on the Miracle? Give me a sponge. Think it's permanent?"

He put a scrub sponge on the counter, then he bent down to swish the suds in the bucket. "Permanent is impossible." _Except when it's not._

"If you'd asked me that last week, I'd've said temporary was impossible. No one's died for five days. Five days!"

"There's bound to be a reasonable explanation." _Or at least a reasonable cover story._

"Immortality, though, isn't that amazing?"

"I doubt it's all it's cracked up to be."

"Okay, maybe if you take the whole solitary immortal angle, like the emo vampire thing, but what if everyone's immortal? Then you wouldn't be watching the people you love die while you lived on."

He paused as the old ache returned to his gut. His instincts were still scratching on the doors, trying to get out. They wanted to do something: investigate, learn… _FIX_. Instead, all he did was mumble, "Planet's going to get pretty full," as he reached over to turn off the water.

Debbie stopped, stared at the counter then back at him again, as the weight of the comment settled on both of them. "Look at places like Japan, though. They make do with very little land."

"And North America is practically empty outside the major cities."

"A lot of that land is farmland. If people move into it that means less food."

He rolled the bucket out to the far corner near the door, then began mopping, his work sloppier than usual in his haste to distract himself. "We've developed much more efficient growing methods. Fewer farmers feed more people with less land, and a lot of crops are grown for non-food purposes. If they stopped making ethanol from corn, for instance, we could feed more off the same amount of land."

"More farmers, then?"

"Well, for a start, though I imagine that wouldn't solve the long run. But it doesn't matter, because this cannot be permanent." He shoved the mop around like he was trying to interrogate it.

"Why?"

"If it was evolutionary, then it would have happened slowly. This seems like it happened overnight. Something triggered it." _Like aliens, or advanced tech in the wrong hands. I'm only surprised it didn't happen at Christmas._

"So what happened? What caused it?"

"I couldn't even begin to speculate." If Torchwood couldn't solve one man's impossible immortality, it was going to take thousands of minds focused 100% to sort it for an entire planet. His opinion was even more inconsequential than the horrible job he was doing mopping the floor. He dunked the mop and wrung it out, starting in a new spot.

"It seems strange, though, doesn't it? Knowing if something happens to you, you won't die? I'll make the deposit tonight. I've got to stop on the way home anyhow." The vacuum's whir was a welcome relief from her rapid-fire questions, but, as usual, she was quick and efficient cleaning the rugs in the sitting area. He was only just beginning to mop behind the counter as she looped up the cord. "What if this had happened before your accident? Think you'd have come back to Toronto?"

"Hard to say, really. I like facts, not hypotheses."

Ianto was startled to feel her hand on his shoulder in a firm, friendly pat. It was the first time he'd been touched that way since he'd fled Cardiff. Not a restrained, professional handshake. Not a mostly-anonymous fuck. Human. Familiar. And for a moment, he allowed himself to lean into it, to feel it, then just as quickly he turned to wring out the mop a last time.

Debbie continued as if she hadn't noticed. "Well, I'm glad you did come here. I don't know what Espress Lane would do without you."

"Drown Eric in a vat of hazelnut syrup?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Miracle begins affecting everyday life, right down to the number of hours Ianto gets at work. He also continues to deal with the repercussions of living under a new identity.

Eric came running out of the break room, his black apron slung haphazardly around his neck like a a grungy superhero. "Sorry. I overslept. I hope the rush wasn't too bad?"

"I managed," Ianto replied. He'd had a raging headache since waking up, and he wouldn't be getting any positive customer comments for speed, but at least the coffees had been made properly. "Good LAN party last night? No repetitive stress injuries from button mashing?" He gestured one-handed in a universally male fashion that bore no resemblance to any known game controller. 

Eric scratched at his eye with his middle finger. "I was up late helping with triage."

"On what? A blown CPU?"

"No, seriously. General's triage overflowed into the parking lot. I was over there helping again."

"They can't possibly be desperate enough to let you graduate from servers to scalpels in..." He glanced over at the calendar to confirm how long it'd been, "a week post-Miracle. Oh, speaking of dying things, credit card machine's acting up."

Eric sighed. "All you've got to do is restart it." He stormed off to the break room.

"I'm miserable with technology," Ianto shouted in reply. He ducked over the grinder, hiding a smug grin. A few seconds and muttered curses later, Eric was back.

"I still can't believe, in this day and age, we're using modems. On purpose. Right, so…" He rubbed his hands down the front of his hastily tied apron. "Lunch prep, what's left?" Ianto pointed to the checklist on his clipboard. "You are so anal."

"It compensates for the people who aren't." 

Eric flourished an imaginary pencil over the list. "Awake after a perfect 8 hours of sleep."

"Check."

"While in shower, visualise greeting customers like a toady."

Ianto rolled his eyes, adding another scoop of chicken salad to the bowl he was filling. "Check."

"Examine bleach job for tell-tale signs of roots. Break into tears attempting to determine if that strand is the correct shade of blond."

"At least I wash mine." Ianto wadded up a towel and threw it at Eric, ducking in time for the return volley. "So, General's overwhelmed already?"

"Etobicoke and Toronto Western are turning people away. The Physician-in-Chief said they're looking into transferring patients to government overflow camps."

"They're what?" Before Eric could clarify, the door opened, chimes announcing a group of college kids looking hung-over and generally unhappy with being out of bed. As they stumbled in, Eric nudged him aside.

"I've got this one." 

Ianto rubbed at the counter. _Overflow camps?_ Just the words got his hackles up, but why? Not everything about governments was bad. Lots of good people did good things at that level no matter what Torchwood had been put through. And someone had to do something if the hospitals were running out of room. It was logical, not diabolical.

Right?

Three double doubles and one mocha latte later, the shop was empty. Both Ianto and Eric started to speak at the same time, but Eric got it out first, "So I really only hauled trash, helped set up canopies, but I saw this guy… shit you not, they got this guy in with a knife through his eye. Can't die, so it's like the Darwin Awards on steroids. They were having knife-throwing contests. And one of his bros apparently has shit for aim. You know, it's weird, talking to people who should be dead but who aren't. It's like―"

"--You can't help but wonder if they're going to drop dead mid-sentence."

"Exactly! By the way, I think that spot's clean." 

Ianto stared at the towel in his hand, surprised it was still there. "Thorough cleaning since I know you won't bother." He threw it in the laundry bin, collected the salad containers, and headed to the back. 

"So who do you know?" Eric's voice rang out as Ianto emerged from the walk-in. Ianto blew out a long, slow breath, collecting himself before turning to the paper goods on the wire shelving. "What do you mean?" 

"Well, that's the new meme, right? Before the Miracle, it was 'where were you when…?' now it's 'who do you know who's a zombie?'"

"No one," he shouted back. Then, to himself, "No one. Because Owen is finally dead. Owen and Toshiko and Lisa and everyone you've ever worked with at Torchwood, even bloody Suzie. They're dead, and so is Ianto Jones, and you've got to remember how Evan Hughes would be reacting right now or you'll wind up dead with them." He pulled down a fourth sleeve of paper cups then shouted. "Thank fuck!" But as he rounded the corner back to the front of the shop, he froze in his tracks. Eric was standing there, blood trickling from his eye. For a split second, Ianto saw a bolt, wires, heard the whirr of machinery, but before the physical training kicked in, the mental training trumped it. There was a crumpled foil packet sitting on the counter. 

Ketchup. 

Eric, realising Ianto had returned, pointed proudly to the handiwork on his face. "Blood and eye goo were oozing down his cheek like this!"

Ready to shout, to rage, to, at the very least, whack Eric over the head with a sleeve of paper cups, Ianto shrugged and said, "Dude, I'm gonna hurl."

"Evan, stop it. You can't pull it off."

"It's still disgusting." 

Eric bounced on his toes. "I wonder if I kept it like this, would anyone actually say anything? Could be a good psych experiment." As he rambled on with the pros and cons, Ianto began restocking their cup supply while his headache reasserted itself. 

"Do you have anything to get rid of a headache?" He paused then added, "Anything that's legal?"

"Drink more coffee so you don't go into withdrawal."

"Not that kind of headache." _Probably brain cells still rebelling from not getting their dirt nap._ He stuffed the rest of the cups under the counter. "I'm going to take my break and run to the drugstore. Need anything?"

"A supermodel with a geek fetish and low standards?" 

"I believe that requires a prescription."

**

Half an hour later, Ianto returned to Espress Lane empty handed. Eric was kicked back on a stool, feet propped on the counter and his DS beeping away. "Is that you, Gisele?" he asked without looking up.

"Not tonight, darling, I still have a headache." 

"How's that?" Evidently finding an acceptable stopping point, Eric looked up.

"No painkillers. Aspirin, paracetamol, bizarre herbs of dubious origins, name brands, store brands, all gone. Shelves all empty. The locusts have depleted the stores of bread and milk, so I guess they're moving on to painkillers."

"If I stock up on anything for the apocalypse, it ain't gonna be bread." With the toe of his trainer, Eric tapped one of the bean display jars.

Considering it for a moment, Ianto did a bit of account juggling in his head then said, "Ring each other out?"

Eric grinned, tossing aside the game. "Gotta love the employee discount."

**

Thankfully, the headache went away after a sound night's sleep. Because he was working the closing shift, Ianto allowed himself a lie-in before heading out for a midday run. And he'd had quite a workout, though it hadn't actually involved jogging.

"I am going to feel that tomorrow. Quite possibly the next day." He sagged onto Trey's chest, a sweating, boneless heap of spent testosterone. His quads and knees ached from holding himself up while Trey had fucked into him with the stamina of the marathon runner he was.

The other man grunted half-heartedly, his deep bronze skin glistening in the light blasting through the bare windows in his living room. "I've been wanting to do that since the first time I ran behind you at Queen's Park." 

"And I'd have let you, other than the part where you had a boyfriend at the time."

"Guess getting dumped has an upside after all."

"I'll send him flowers."

Trey laughed then nudged Ianto in the side. "Roll over. You want water or soda?"

"Water's fine, thanks." He flopped off the muscled chest and onto the sisal rug they'd only just avoided landing on in their rush to strip out of their workout clothes. It made a good back scratcher now that the sweat was starting to dry. He wondered if he looked lithe and feline, or just silly. 

Trey returned mid-wriggle and didn't laugh, so he was clearly a saint as well as a history professor. "Here, water and," his eyes swept the room then he stretched and grabbed something slightly blurry off the honey blond Danish modern sofa table, "glasses. Bathroom's there, kitchen's here," he pointed alternately behind himself and to the side of the room. "Once you're back together, come to the kitchen. I don't know about you, but sex makes me hungry, and since I don't eat before I run, I am starving."

Ianto propped himself up on his elbows, glasses fixed in place to enjoy the view as Trey walked naked out of the room. He'd seen that butt a hundred times if he'd seen it once, on the track of course, but also during his occasional visits to the Espress Lane and the handful of times they'd run into each other at the whole foods market. Nothing compared to the unadorned view, though, especially when his body contrasted so sharply with the stark white walls. It was bloody gorgeous.

The water finished, Ianto capped the bottle and climbed to wobbly legs, a dopey grin on his face as he sought out his clothes and untangled them from Trey's. 

Definitely not the way he'd figured his afternoon would go, but certainly more interesting than cleaning or reading a book. And doubly nice to be the one getting pulled for once. He'd almost tripped over his own feet when Trey had dropped the awkward, unsubtle hint that they could move their workout indoors after months of fruitless flirtation.

After a quick wipe down in the toilet, Ianto went to the kitchen, unprepared for another tripping over his feet moment (though this one a bit more metaphorical). Trey was barefoot and naked other than the loose tracksuit bottoms now covering that fine backside as he walked around the minimalist kitchen. But the real surprise was the small glass table burdened with plates and bowls, five kinds of cereal, muesli, milk, juice, fresh fruit, and, front and centre, what looked like a smoothie or a protein shake.

"That's quite a spread. Thank you."

"The garnish isn't too much, is it?" Trey asked, pointing to the orange curl on the shake. "I can't help myself. I learned the trick when I was a bartender."

"No," he replied, taking the seat Trey offered. Another disconcerting moment as Trey pushed in the chair for him then joined him on the opposite side of the table. "Looks great. You didn't have to go to all this trouble."

"Truthfully, this is my morning routine. I just doubled the batch on the shake. It's vanilla whey protein with bananas and oranges. No problems with whey or lactose, I hope?"

"Not at all." He lifted the drink and took a big gulp to hide his growing sense of unease. It was spot on, no grit or chalkiness, just creamy and fruity. "So, you were a bartender?"

"Yeah, while I finished school. Money was pretty good, and the hours didn't interfere with my classes, but I imagine you get that."

Ianto didn't correct him. He was fond of jogging in Queen's Park, and it backed right up to the university. It was a logical assumption to make that, at his age, he was a graduate student if he didn't have a more grown-up job. Not like he was going to get to know Trey well enough for it to matter. He diverted the conversation to running, to the weather, to the inevitable discussion of the Miracle. And his unease gave way to a pleasant meal, superficial chatter periodically breaking up requests for refills. 

Trey belched and was halfway to excusing himself when Ianto rustled up a companion. The other man laughed, standing up and beginning to remove their dirty dishes. Ianto folded his napkin onto the table and was halfway out of his chair, but Trey waved him back down. 

"No, man, I've got it." He cranked open the tap and began rinsing out the cereal bowls. "So what's your schedule like the rest of the day?"

"Work at three," Ianto replied, checking his watch just to confirm the time. Still good, barely past noon. "What other classes do you teach today?" 

"Tuesday/Thursday, I only teach in the mornings. Technically, these are my office hours, but no one ever comes unless there's an exam coming up or a grade they need to complain about." Ianto chuckled, leaning against the counter and sipping the last of his orange juice while Trey loaded up his dishwasher. "So, I assume you're closing tonight." Ianto nodded as he continued. "Want to get together afterwards? Maybe dinner, a movie?"

And there it was. Ianto sagged inside, but he didn't let it show. Instead, he just gave the familiar, practised reply, "I'm sorry. I'm really not a relationship kind of person." Next, Trey would either agree wholeheartedly, or agree in that half-hearted way that said he'd drastically misjudged the situation but felt like too much of a fool to disagree. 

"Was it Jack?"

"Excuse me?"

"Jack." Trey looked away, clearly embarrassed. "You, um, said that name."

"Oh." Ianto dropped his face into his palm, feeling both rude and careless, and not sure which one was worse. "I am so sorry."

"It's OK. I get it. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about my ex a couple of times, too. We're both human." His voice seemed closer suddenly, and Ianto uncovered his face to see Trey leaning beside him. "Evan, I'm not ready to start picking out furniture together. I'd just like to see you again."

It was so tempting. To have a lover, someone who knew him and who he knew, he could learn about and please and be pleased by instead of this on-going parade of new, strange, new... but he didn't dare. If for no other reason but the fact it wouldn't be fair to Trey. Maybe Ianto Jones was no longer important enough to be hunted. Perhaps he had never been. But Ianto knew one thing for certain, Trey was a nice guy that who didn't deserve having his boyfriend up and disappear one day. No, it was better to keep it to just this once. As always. "Thank you, really. I'm incredibly flattered, but I should go." He reached out to collect his messenger bag from where he'd hooked it on the back of the chair.

"No, it's fine. Stay. Have some more juice. Good for the electrolytes."

"I'm fine, actually. Doesn't take as much out of you, slinging coffee," he said, miming presenting a mug to an invisible customer. 

"Yeah." Trey's disappointment was more obvious than he was likely aware, and Ianto had to force himself not to kiss him goodbye or do something else kind. It was better to keep things from going any more pear-shaped than they already had. "I'll see you in the park soon, then."

"Sure." _No, you won't._

It wasn't the first time Ianto had walked home rumpled and reeking of sex, but it was the first time he'd felt so alone doing it. He should have recognised the signs: long term relationship, multiple degrees, dedicated athlete. The man didn't do things by half measures. Hell, it was probably the first time Trey had ever picked someone up like that. Which said things about Evan Hughes that were less than flattering, but--

"Do you miss your soul?"

"Excuse me?" Ianto snapped, absolutely not in the mood to have a religious nut judging his behaviour on top of everything else. Then he realised that the person asking wasn't just someone with a tract to hand out, but one of those Miracle protesters in the white masks. He'd heard of them but hadn't seen one himself, and the masks were just as creepy in person. Nearly featureless, and made doubly off-putting in the flickering candlelight by which they were holding their street corner vigil.

"Do you miss your soul?" 

Ianto just managed to keep from rolling his eyes. The Soulless, as they called themselves, were reportedly harmless enough, but who held candlelight vigils on their lunch break? Instead of taking the bait, he walked on, ignoring her. Unfortunately, she continued. 

"Without a soul, we can't die, because there's no longer a soul for God to take into Heaven. God has abandoned us because our sins were too great."

 _Right. Enough of this._ He turned back. "I used to be like you. I used to believe in an afterlife, but we haven't lost anything. After we die, it's just black. There's nothing."

"And how would you know that?"

"How do you know? Because someone put it in a book?"

Thankfully, that shut her up. He'd been rude, sure, but more likely, she figured he wasn't worth arguing with. 

She was right. 

The rest of the group joined her silence as he stalked away. Their eyes followed him, blank stares that tracked him with the eerie persistence of an old painting. But as he walked, he shuddered. If he was honest with himself―and this was an honesty he avoided with brutal efficiency―he remembered nothing about being dead. There was no void, no blackness, no presence in the dark like Suzie and Owen had described. It wasn't much different than blinking: one second, he was on the floor in front of the 456, the next he was on a table in an alien ship. 

Ianto didn't dare examine that too closely, because it could mean any number of things he didn't want to face. Maybe he'd lost his soul when he'd lost Lisa; it'd sure as hell felt that way at the time. Maybe Hell really was that bizarre netherworld at the other end of a box of matches, and the thing in the blackness was just the travel agent, waiting to book your final destination.

 _Or maybe, maybe it's all just a bunch of randomly firing neurons, and the reason I don't remember anything is because I was well and truly dead within seconds of exposure._ It made more sense. There was great comfort in the logic of a viciously efficient alien virus. Far more certain than the superstitions and uncertainties he'd been raised with. Oh, he'd dabbled in religion again after Lisa had died, going to a few services to try to find meaning in her suffering. All he'd found was ineffability. Torchwood had been real. Clear. And Jack had been a figurehead he could follow with no doubts. 

At least until he couldn't.

Ianto shook his head. He didn't need anyone else. In fact, he only got into trouble when he depended on others. A relationship would weigh him down, just so much unnecessary baggage. He was better, more nimble, on his own. With a grim smile, he launched back into a jog so he could get home sooner. 

**

Two weeks after the Miracle had started, life got redefined. Legally, at least. It was inevitable, of course. A functioning society depended on laws, which was why people elected other people to deal with the hassle of writing them. From the G8 to the dog catcher, every rule needed rewritten when death went out of fashion. 

It was still dark outside as Ianto rounded the corner for his morning shift. "Officer Woolworth, good to see you!" He waved to the yawning policeman leaning against the lamp post. The man was holding a travel mug, and Ianto took it without being asked, slowing down only long enough to unlock the door.

Officer Fred Woolworth followed him in, taking his accustomed chair as he waited for Ianto to disable the alarm and switch on the lights. They weren't technically open for another half an hour, but if you couldn't trust a cop to come in early, who could you trust?

"How's the beat?" Ianto asked. Foregoing most of the opening formalities, he scooped up some Kona beans and set them to grinding. Fred preferred Kona, though he always took whatever was offered. 

Fred pulled off his cap and scratched his silvering hair. "Seems a little calmer, at least over the weekend, but I'll bet the latest clarifications of the Categories will make today awful interesting."

Scanning the task list Debbie had left for him, Ianto asked, "How so? The Categories of Life are for doctors and hospitals." He dropped the clipboard back to the counter and stopped the grinder. He loaded the grind into the big percolator then switched it on. "I'd think you guys took the brunt of the excitement Friday when they all but erased murder from the books." He had other opinions, of course, but it was always safer to parrot people's words back at them. Fred's words were usually pretty entertaining on that front. 

Fred gazed out the windows for a moment before replying, "Now that we've had a few days to get used to the idea, they're saying categorization is mandatory. Anyone who's a '1' has gotta go to one of those overflow camps."

After dropping a single cube of demerera into a mug for each of them, Ianto walked around the counter, leaning against it. He propped his hands on his hips. "The extended care facilities filled up, now, too?" 

"No, that's the thing. There are still plenty of options, but the UN is forbidding it."

That caught Ianto short, and he frowned, considering his words carefully. "The UN doesn't have jurisdiction."

"The member nations have agreed it's for international peace and security." Fred said the last in a sing-song voice that all but proclaimed the member nations were idiots. "Come on, kid, I can tell you want to say more. I'm not going to rat you out to the boss. I'm asking your opinion."

Ianto gave a self-deprecating snort. "I'm a barista."

Fred shook his head, pointing at Ianto with a thick finger. "You're a barista who pays attention. When you're the one at the counter, the news is on. And you respect cops."

"Is that odd?"

"The boss lady is afraid to make eye contact. The kid always tries to sell me a doughnut."

"He's good at sales." 

"You don't carry doughnuts."

"Fair point." Ianto chuckled as the percolator's gurgles changed to the sound that signalled the beginning of coffee flow. He went back to the percolator. "An old friend of mine is a former cop."

"Right. So tell me what you think about this."

Taking time to collect his thoughts, Ianto carefully swapped the pot with mugs, a trick he'd picked up at Torchwood One. There, an extra thirty seconds' wait for coffee really could be the difference between life and death. He gave each mug a rough stir to dissolve the sugar before delivering Fred's and joining him at the table. "I think the Categories are a good idea." The coffee burned his tongue beautifully as he took his first sip, bracing him for what he hoped would be a busy morning. "They were developed by doctors with a broad range of experience. They're basic enough to make sense of things when it needs made. They're also open-ended enough that they can be applied as needed to local circumstances."

Fred nodded along with each point as Ianto made it then waved his hand encouragingly, "But?"

Ianto blew softly on the coffee, the surface billowing out in tiny concentric rings. "Category 1 is too open-ended. How can we be certain that a person would have died before the Miracle?"

Fred smacked the little café table, and it rocked precariously. Ianto made a mental note to level the feet again. "Exactly! We had so-called miracle recoveries all the time."

Shoving his glasses aside, Ianto rubbed his eyes. "And now the governments have decided anyone who is designated a Category 1 has to go to a camp whether they want to or not."

"It doesn't make any sense to me." Fred's knee bounced impatiently, as if having someone agree with him had released a jolt of pent up energy. He chugged back half of his coffee in one long swallow before continuing. "If it was about quarantine, everyone's at risk from the new superbugs. And a lot of 2's could be just as dangerous as 1's, maybe more, because they're still walking around sick or wounded."

Knowing he shouldn't get any deeper into the discussion with a customer, even Fred, Ianto nodded agreement, motioning to the percolator as he stood up. It was starting to head into the end of its cycle, so he needed to get another pot going. "My old doctor used to say that medicine is troubleshooting a system that lies about its error messages."

Fred hooted his appreciation while Ianto filled up his travel mug. He wiped a drip from the side before turning around again. Fred was waiting at the counter with a smile, a crisp bill in the tip jar.

"Thank you, Officer."

"You're welcome." He tapped the brim of his cap with the edge of the travel mug. "Always enjoy our talks."

Unfortunately, the rest of the morning was not half as pleasant. Customers were few and far between. Gourmet coffee was an easy sacrifice to make when people were tightening their belts, especially gourmet coffee without the convenience of a drive-thru. When Debbie came in after lunch, the frown on her face said the day wasn't going to get any better.

"Staff cuts," she said without prompting, and Ianto was gripped by a fear he hadn't felt since he was a kid. He braced himself on the counter, exhaling slowly. He had a little of the money left that he'd socked away for escaping with Lisa, but only a little. Without his Espress Lane income, he'd have, at best, three months before he was unable to support himself. If he was lucky, he'd manage to find another service industry job. If not, he was going to have to take the risk of exposing some of his more unique skills. Unfortunately, the people most interested in those were also the people who wanted him dead. Even post-Miracle, that wasn't exactly conducive to a good working relationship.

"Just Eric," Debbie added, even though Ianto hadn't asked. He was ashamed of his relief.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't go feeling guilty. We're both going to be working our butts off. They also cut hours, which means we're probably going to be running the show solo most days."

He nodded. 

"Anyhow, I'm not here to work just yet. I've got to call Eric. Then you and I have to sit down and redo the schedule."

Ianto nodded again, grabbing his checklist and making a show of confirming all the work was done so he could avoid having to make eye contact.

Thankfully, lunch was a little busier. Fiscal responsibility went by the wayside in the face of the midday slump. Several regulars showed up, and one frazzled legal secretary came running in looking for any baked goods she could get on short notice.

"Emergency meeting with the partners!" she said, blowing a damp clump of fringe off her forehead. "You think inheritance laws were arcane before all this happened, try to sort out estates for people who aren't technically dead."

Eric took the news of his unemployment with far more grace than expected. He showed up two hours later to turn in his keys, bouncing around as if he'd just won the lottery. "It's cool," he said. "The 'rents will provide until I can find something. General thinks they might actually get me on the payroll, anyhow."

They'd just tended with a handful of post-first-shift customers when, out of the corner of his eye, Ianto caught a glimpse of a video on the news. They'd been watching it with the sound off, favouring Debbie's iPod set to shuffle. Normally, he'd glance at the text crawling across the bottom, digest whatever bad news it contained, then get back to work. This time, he froze.

"Turn up the volume."

"What?" Debbie asked. 

"Volume!" he shouted, grabbing blindly under the counter for the remote. Debbie beat him to it, aiming the remote at the television then stepping back. The talking heads chattered for a moment, rehashing what they'd played. Ianto just stood, silent and stock still.

Explosion. A huge one at an overflow camp. In Wales. A recording made with jerky, erratic camera footage. Footage that looked like it was being recorded through someone's eyes. Familiar eyes in the wing mirror of a motorcycle.

It was almost too much to hope...

"Oh, God, that's awful!" Debbie said, covering her mouth. "Those poor people."

"… a reminder that what you are going to see may be disturbing. We'll be running the video again in one minute, if you'd like to have anyone leave the room."

"Come on!" he said, tapping his foot impatiently as the seconds ticked away. 10... 9...

The header flashed again.

The Truth.

And then, the video replayed. Ianto closed his eyes, not caring about the bodies or the flames he'd already seen, just desperate to hear the mechanical voice of the lip-reading software. But the talking heads were living up to their name, providing commentary and drowning out the audio on the tape. Then, he caught it. A female voice. And not a computer. A _real_ voice. Welsh. 

He bolted over the counter and ran up to the man who'd spent the last hour quietly surfing in the plaid easy chair.

"May I borrow your computer?" he asked, snatching it up before the man could answer. He slapped it onto an empty table and went straight to You Tube, ignoring the shouted protests. The search was easy, took seconds, but every link he found buffered, or, worse, crashed the browser. He kept trying, opening up tab after tab as he scanned all the video upload sites and local news channels. He was only vaguely aware of yelling around him until, at last, a breakthrough. The sound of a motorcycle hummed through the tinny speakers, and he frantically struck Ctrl-Tab until he found the page with a video playing. He cranked the sound all the way up just in time for the voice to speak. A voice he knew so damned well he could still imitate it two years later.

"I'm saying no."

 _Gwen!_ He beamed, running it back again, only to have it freeze. He tabbed until he found another one working and played it again. Then again, laughing, pleased beyond reason to know that Gwen was out there with a team and a plan. Even if she was being hunted by God knows who, she was still a step ahead of them. More so, really, if the size of the explosion was any indication. When had she learnt to set explosive charges? And when had they figured out how to get audio on the contacts? Her new tech must be incredible.

"Evan? Evan! I need you to give this man his computer back." Ianto looked up, startled to see Debbie standing over him, her hands on his shoulders. "Why haven't you been answering me?" It took him a second to get past the fact she was shaking him. Why was she calling him that name? A name that wasn't his. A name that wasn't...

 _Shit._ His stomach sank. The man who owned the computer stood behind her, livid.

"I'm so sorry," he said, shocked at his impulsiveness. "I--" Before he could continue, the man snatched his laptop and stomped out the door. Debbie shouted apologies as she ran after him, then sighed, standing at the closed door long enough to compose herself. 

"What the hell was that?" she finally asked.

"I just..." He hesitated, then realised he owed her something like the truth. "I recognised the woman who made the video."

Debbie returned to the sitting area and took a chair, pointing him down into the one opposite. "Really? What's her name?"

 _Not that much truth._ "I, oh, wow, it's on the tip of my tongue." He drew his brows together in the look of one thinking incredibly hard. "She worked for some sort of rescue organization―" Underneath the table, he gripped the knee of his jeans, doing his best to control the completely inappropriate joy still surging through him.

"Like the Red Cross? It probably has a different name over there, but―"

"Yeah, something like that. She was at the hospital a lot. After my accident." _Which accident isn't relevant._

"And now she's blowing things up?"

"My thoughts exactly."

Debbie smiled. "OK, so points for excitement." She paused, chewing the outside corner of her lower lip. "I'm going to have to write you up, though. If that guy makes the complaint he's promised, it'll... well, I really can't afford to lose you, too. Don't do something like this again."

"I won't. I'm sorry." Torchwood was striking at the heart of the beast. It had something to do with the camps, and whatever it was, they were close. He could hear it in Gwen's voice. He probably wouldn't even get a chance to be so stupid a second time.

The thought should have thrilled him, but, oddly, he felt a bit sick. He looked around the room, as if it might hold the answers – walls the colour of rusted metal, second-hand furniture mingled with IKEA standards, the dog-shaped bank that had been left by the register for donations to an animal rescue – and it suddenly became clear. This was it, now. His life was inside these four walls, and it was small. So very small.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having seen the video Gwen made of her explosion at the Cowbridge overflow camp, Ianto is forced to confront the price of his new life.

Freshly showered and in his best pulling gear, Ianto found himself wandering the streets. Just looking: at trees, at old buildings, at crumbling sections of pavement. He couldn't stop walking, brain blanking with the repetitive motion until he didn't even think of how sore his feet had become, or the tingling throb in his legs when he stopped to wait at a pedestrian crossing. He had to keep moving, otherwise, he was going to hop the next flight to Wales.

It wasn't until he accidentally noticed a clock that he discovered how long he'd been gone. He stopped, looked around, and realised he had no idea where he was. The buildings were unfamiliar. It really, really made him regret the lack of a mobile phone. A few seconds, and he'd know. Well, nothing for it. He was going to have to do it the old fashioned way. He doubled-back to the last street he'd crossed: London and Bathurst. Familiar names, but not familiar enough. London didn't look busy enough to offer up a taxi, so he returned to the route he'd already been taking. Maybe he'd find a more promising street.

"Or someone to ask for directions." 

Inside the gates of a wrought-iron fence, a man was sitting on at the base of a wide stone staircase. The double doors at the landing above him were open, a slice of light limning his torso in amber. "Excuse me," Ianto said, raising his voice enough the man could hear. "I'm a bit lost."

The man didn't budge, so Ianto examined him more closely. He was smoking a cigarette, the amber tip cutting a trail through a cast of pale blue light glowing up from his feet. It looked like a smart phone or an MP3 player. Debating for a moment, Ianto decided to interrupt. It was late; he wanted to get home. He waved a bit, trying to catch the man's eye so he didn't startle him on approach. To the left, he noticed an unlit sign reading St. Simon's Roman Catholic Church. Turning back to the man, he realised he was sitting on the steps of an impressive Gothic revival structure, and he was wearing black. A priest then.

_A priest smoking and listening to tunes at 3 AM, but still a priest._

Ianto waved again when he was within a few steps, and this time the priest startled. He pulled out his earbuds, looking relieved as Ianto stopped a safe distance away. "I'm sorry, can I help you?"

"I'm a bit lost, Father."

"That's very common these days," he replied, his expression changing to a welcoming smile as he gestured Ianto towards him. "Come, sit with me, and we can talk." He patted the space at his side, then moved to rub out his cigarette.

"No, wait," Ianto raised a hand pre-emptively. "I don't mind if you smoke. And I'm not that sort of lost. I've been out walking for a few hours, and I don't know this part of town." He gestured to his pockets to show they were empty. "No phone."

The priest laughed for real this time. "That I can help you with." He lifted up the smart phone. "A gift from the parish. They like their priests to be connected to more than just God." He motioned a second time for Ianto to sit, so he joined him a shoulder's width away on the steps. It might not be smart to give the lactic acid a chance to settle, but the courtyard inside the gates was green and smelled of earth and damp, a little oasis from the exhaust fumes and night-warmed rubbish. It felt right to stop for a few minutes, and a pervading sense of exhaustion was starting to creep up on him the longer he stood still.

"Father Keller," the priest said, extending a hand. "Everyone calls me Father Tim."

"Evan," Ianto replied, taking it. "Pleased to meet you."

The pleasantries aside, the priest lifted the phone up and launched his map application. "Where are you trying to get?" Ianto told him the address for Espress Lane and watched as he tapped it in. When it loaded up, the priest shared the screen. "Late as it is, I should probably call you a taxi."

"Not too much trouble, is it?"

"No. It's nice to be able to do some good."

"I'd think you'd get to do good all the time."

"Not these days." Father Tim made a pleased noise then began scrolling through his contacts. Evidently, this wasn't the first time he'd needed to arrange transportation for someone. "Twenty minutes." He disconnected from the agency then held out a cigarette.

"God, yes!" Ianto reached out for it eagerly, then hesitated, the old conditioning kicking in."Er... sorry." 

But the apology was greeted with a laugh. "The tobacco leaf is one of God's many great creations, it's fine to enjoy it. The only sin is in indulging too often."

"I like how you think." With the borrowed lighter, Ianto carefully stoked his cigarette, taking shallow puffs until the ember was eating into the tip. 

Taking the lighter back, Father Tim asked, "Are you Catholic?" 

"Afraid not. Not much of anything these days."

"Many have found themselves at a loss recently."

"Is it an actual miracle?" he asked, unable to stop himself. "Is God behind this?"

"He works in mysterious ways, of course, but it's not my place to say."

"Does the church? I mean, it's odd that the Vatican hasn't made a formal statement." Very odd. He clearly recalled the day Yvonne Hartman had sent a scathing email about the Catholic church being stuck in the Stone Age for not only refusing to declare the Ghost Shifts a miracle but for urging people to be cautious around the so-called ghosts. 

"His Holiness has made quite a few statements, just not about what caused this change. The church had a few thousand years to learn it's unwise to rush into declaring something a miracle."

Ianto chuckled. "Has it been good for attendance?" he asked, nodding to the open doors.

"Actually, we've cut back on formal masses." Before Ianto could ask if it was the same mindset as the Soulless, the priest added, "This particular church has changed its mission. We're helping the sick so our families and friends don't have to go to the camps. Some parishioners are uncomfortable with that."

"Isn't that the best place for the sick, though? With expert care?" He sounded like he was trying to convince himself, which was more or less accurate.

"I thought that at first." He paused, examining Ianto's face then obviously making a decision. "But, no, not now. When they start talking about making it mandatory, regardless of the injury? That makes me think it's something else."

"That they're just storage. Or worse." The priest nodded as Ianto took a long drag off his own cigarette. As he flicked the ash on the step in the same place the priest had been using, Ianto added, "I've seen horrible things in my life. I wouldn't be surprised."

For a few minutes, the only exchange they shared was the sound of paper burning as they inhaled on their cigarettes, staring out at the street as cars passed by with a thump of bass or a rattling muffler. It was curiously comforting, at least until Father Tim spoke up again.

"Why did you go walking tonight? You're not really dressed for it."

Ianto snorted. "I just... Well, it wasn't what I'd planned. I was going to go to a club. Meet someone." He hedged, but the other man didn't flinch. "But I never did. Walking was the only thing that felt right."

"You want to do something." It wasn't a question. "You're fighting the urge to help. Why?"

"I used to help. For a living. And it nearly cost me my life." He thought back to the day he signed his contract with Yvonne, to the near rapturous patriotism that seemed to infect everyone until they'd been there a few weeks. "I've done my bit for Queen and country."

"That's what you're telling yourself, but your heart is insisting otherwise, isn't it?" He snuffed out his cigarette, scuffing away their ash pile with the toe of his black loafer.

Ianto nodded. Something seemed to ease at the admission, even as his throat tightened. He wanted to cry suddenly, and he swallowed it back, confused by the strength of his reaction. 

"Evan, have you met a Category 1?" Father Tim asked softly.

"No."

He wrapped the earbuds around the phone as he nodded towards the doors. "Then come with me. We have a few more minutes before your taxi arrives. Maybe seeing things for yourself will help you decide."

Ianto hesitated. Talking was one thing. Going on a little excursion was another. "I should probably get back. I have to work in the morning and don't really have time to travel―" 

"You don't have to travel anywhere. They're here." He held open the heavy wooden door, motioning Ianto inside.

"Here?"

"Yes. Some have lost their homes, unable to work. Some need round-the-clock care, and it was easier to set up shifts in a single location." Ianto saw the logic, but he also saw bodies hidden in damp basements, metal and morphine and-- "I promise, I won't pressure you to help us. We have limited capacity, and our parish members are a generous bunch. Come see, though. It might help you sort your thoughts."

 _It's not like that. It's not Lisa._ Taking a deep breath to steel himself for whatever he was about to face, Ianto climbed the steps and entered the church.

He wasn't quite sure what he'd expected: a hospital ward, perhaps. But the church was intact, all the spice of incense and wood polish, dim lights and buckling floors that spoke of age and tight budgets. It reminded him of squirming in a creaking pew while the vicar rambled on about people with strange names and Rhiannon doodled in her notebook. 

They kept walking, passing the altar and turning down a hallway that connected them to a newer part of the building. The addition was painted cinder block and wall-to-wall carpet. Instead of a bland assortment of tables and chairs, though, this common room was filled with cots and air beds. The sick were all quite still, some with eyes opened, others eyes closed. The smell of incense was replaced by disinfectant, and, overwhelmingly, the sharp, musky odour of illness. Wandering between the beds, a pair of women and one teenage girl were adjusting pillows or checking IV bags that had been rigged from the functional drop ceiling. In the corner, a man sat hunched, maybe even asleep, while a few feet away from him, another man knelt in prayer at front of a small bank of red votives. 

Father Tim spread his hands. "The leaders of the world say they have no hope. We believe otherwise." 

"Why?" Ianto, unable to shake the horror-struck stillness as he finished counting the fifteen patients in the room, then began multiplying it by cities, then by countries. 

"Angela?" A middle-aged woman wearing a tee shirt emblazoned with "World's Best Grandma!" turned at the sound of Father Tim's voice. "Could you come here for a moment?" She nodded, tugging the top of a blanket over a young man's shoulders. 

"How can I help you, Father?" She asked as she arrived beside them. Her expression was knowing, as if she already had the answer to the question he hadn't asked. Father Tim smiled the same knowing look. Ianto almost felt bad when he didn't so much as flinch after she uncovered a massive abdominal wound.

"I'm healing," she said, pointing to the edges of the injury which were, indeed, beginning to scab and display all the shades of the bruise rainbow. "But I would've been dead before the Miracle. Liver damage, ruptured spleen, severed renal artery. I should've been DOA after my wreck, but I kept going."

"How do you feel?" Ianto asked. "Are you in pain?"

"I feel all of it, but I'm getting used to it."

Father nodded a dismissal, and Angela smiled, tucking her tee shirt back in and returning to the patient she'd been helping. "We have two doctors in our congregation who share duties monitoring the care, instructing us how best to help. Yesterday, they sent someone home because he'd healed enough that his family could care for him. If you took him to a hospital now, they'd call him a '2,' but he's got the '1' on his record, and the rules don't provide for a change of status."

"One and done."

"Pretty much. The Internet is full of similar stories. That's what I was reading when you arrived, actually." Ianto hummed agreement, watching as Angela and the other woman carefully rolled the body of another person, face covered with so many bandages that it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman. "When this ends, and we pray it will, more may survive if we only give them the chance."

"Not everyone, though."

"No. So we must be as compassionate to them as we can." Father Tim lowered his voice. "Not toss them like garbage."

A horn sounded from outside, and Ianto stiffened at the same moment Father Tim smiled down at his watch. "They're early." Grateful for the excuse, Ianto immediately headed for the door. From behind him, though, Father Tim asked, "Do you pray?"

He kept walking but slowed down enough that it wouldn't be perceived as running away. It took too much energy to be that rude. "Not in a long time."

"Perhaps you should begin again." Father Tim raised a hand before Ianto could protest. "You don't need to get on your knees and recite litanies. Find a quiet place and focus your thoughts. You might find you don't get lost this time."

Relieved, he nodded, and when they reached the exit, he extended a hand. "Thank you for your help."

Taking it in a firm grip, Father Tim replied, "You're always welcome here, Evan."

"But I'm not Catholic--"

"I'm not so sure it matters anymore."

**

Half an hour later, Ianto was back in his apartment, lights out as he limped a circle around the sofa and table. His legs had started cramping in the taxi, and his right calf was in full-on spasm by the time he got upstairs. Even if that hadn't been the case, though, he doubted he could sleep. Not after what he'd seen. He'd never seen anything like it, and that was... well, _rare._

Of course there'd been Owen, but for all the similarity of impossibly dead people still moving around, it was entirely different. He didn't breathe, though he could speak (and that had never made sense). He could be wounded, but he could never heal. These people were healing. Slowly, not the magical, almost instantaneous healing Jack enjoyed, but healing nonetheless. They were mentally alive, physically alive, just... in stasis? No, that wasn't right. They suffered every aspect of their injuries except the dying part.

Even Jack died. He didn't have to stay in that gruesome limbo. He died, knitted up, then came charging back to life. The Miracle was like Jack, but it wasn't. It was like Owen, but it wasn't. All the tech Ianto had handled, all the histories he'd studied before, during, after Lisa, none of it had been anything like this.

Of course he wasn't vain enough to think he knew everything. Fuck, he couldn't even get rid of a leg cramp (walking wasn't helping, so he went to the icebox to rig up some sort of cold compress). But he had more information than the average person where the unusual was concerned.

The ache in his head was real enough even if its origin was more emotional than biological. He should be helping. Eric, a freaking gaming nerd, was helping. Ianto had to do something. But he refused, absolutely refused to put his life on the line, even now. He didn't want to wind up one step shy of a vegetable. But he could still synthesise information and apply it to knowledge that few others had.

The problem was, why would anyone believe him instead of having him institutionalised? Especially if he couldn't admit who he actually was. No, Torchwood was the only way. More specifically, Ianto needed to know where they were and what they knew. He'd not been able to reach Gwen at any number he had for her before he left Cardiff, and he wasn't expecting that to have changed. Which meant he had to get online. If he was patient, he could find enough information to get in touch with her. People always talked. 

The only thing he didn't know was how on Earth he was going to tell her he was still alive. 

"One problem at a time," he said, shifting a bag of frozen sweet corn a little lower on his shin. 

**

After a day spent fighting leg cramps throughout his shift, Ianto took a bus to the furthest-flung internet café he could find. He'd called Eric for a recommendation and, after politely declining use of Eric's laptop (and enduring a healthy dose of shit for still not having his own), he'd been chuffed when Eric suggested one that accepted cash to "give you some privacy."

Cash absolutely zeroed out his risk, even as it nearly zeroed out his wallet. He'd had to leave his ID at the scratched lino counter, but the kid at the register gave him another knowing wink. "Just keep the volume down and clear the cache when you're done." He was reasonably sure his ID wasn't going to get associated with the PC.

Sadly, even though he had nothing sordid in mind, it really was a bit pornographic gazing into the dusty, slightly smeared monitor, keys yielding to skilled fingertips as he directed an anonymiser to Google. OK, it pained him to be limited to public search tools, but he wasn't going to push his luck by hacking his way around the system policy restrictions so he could install something better. He'd manage.

'Showing results for _**touchwood.**_  
Search instead for _**torchwood.**_ '

"What?"

He clicked on 'Torchwood' but got the same results. He double-checked that he hadn't misspelled then stared blankly. "Huh." He typed in 'Mermaid Quay,' and it returned nearly two million results. The problem wasn't Google.

He rotated through several more search engines. They all turned up nothing. Nought. Zed. That was impossible. A good percentage of the hits Tosh's crawlers had tracked were from bog standard websites that littered these engines with exaggerated tales of Torchwood's exploits. Most of them weren't anything to worry about, but there was always something.

This was _nothing_. It was as if Torchwood had never existed. And for one dread-filled moment, he actually allowed himself to wonder if it was all in his imagination, or, worse, he and Mairwyn had done something to alter time when they stole the Shroud. But he switched to an image search, and he only had to get through one screen before he found pictures of the water buses, and, in the background, the TIC before the bombing. Same battered door. Same yellowed newspapers on the lower windows. The very ones he'd tried to remove more than once, always to be stopped by Jack for reasons he'd never cared to explain. Fake tourist office meant Torchwood, full stop.

He tried everything he could think of: cache searches, blogs, web archives. Nothing. He tried logical searches like "aliens" or "black SUV," pairing them with places in Cardiff he knew they'd worked very visible cases that had spawned loads of online chatter. Still nothing.

Then something strange happened. The mouse and keyboard stopped responding. The system threw up an alert. He only saw it for a second, and it evidently hadn't sent an alert to the front desk because the kid kept on fiddling with his own computer, but the firewall on the local machine had detected an intrusion. Just as quickly, it disappeared, as if something had stopped it. He backed away from the table, looking around as subtly as he could in case he was being watched, but he saw nothing. He touched the mouse, and the pointer moved again. He waited for another nervous minute, then went back into the browser and opened the History menu. 

All of his searches had disappeared.

Someone, or, more accurately, some sweet piece of code, had got into the computer he was using and cleared his tracks. Not only did Torchwood not exist online, someone was keeping it from existing.

It was unnerving, at first, then he had a flash that was something like joy. It was actually exactly how it should be. Torchwood wasn't supposed to be public. Running around in a clearly marked vehicle wasn't the hallmark of a secret organization. The only logical answer was that Gwen's new tech, in addition to working wonders with the contact lenses, had well and truly cleared Torchwood off the map. God, it was about time someone took their secrecy seriously.

Relaxing, Ianto toyed with looking up Rhiannon, but he ultimately decided against it. This computer, this entire café, was now tied to Torchwood, no matter how obliquely. He ran a few searches for numbers he thought might be of use (Gwen's not being one of them, as it was a near certainty her information was just as well-scrubbed online as the organization's), then logged out. The kid barely paid him a lick of attention, taking one hand off the game controller long enough to shove a stack of IDs at him so he could fish his own out.

Outside, Ianto bypassed the bus stop in favour of walking. It was easier to see if he was being followed, and it actually felt good to keep moving, finally easing the stiffness from the night before. After fifteen minutes on foot, he was positive no one gave a damn, and so took the bus the rest of the way. 

As the lumbering vehicle jostled them down the road, cheap fluorescent lights tinting his fellow passengers a flickering, sickly green, Ianto considered what he'd accomplished. He hadn't found any direct way to contact Gwen, but he did know that the non-emergency number to the Cardiff police department hadn't changed. He also had two likely listings for Geraint and Mary Cooper. All he had to do now was figure out how to convince one of them that a dead man was still alive, and that they should give Gwen his message.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toronto reacts to the news that the overflow camps have a more sinister purpose, and Ianto makes a decision that will radically alter his new life.

"Debbie? Did I get my schedule wrong? I can come in now if--" Ianto paused, rubbing his face and gauging the strength of his hangover. _Survivable._ "Er, hi, good morning!"

"You're not scheduled. And, hi." She sounded fragile, tentative, something he wasn't accustomed to hearing in her voice. Ianto scooted up, leaning his back against the arm of his grey sofa, having not bothered to fold out the sleeper the night before. "I was just calling to... Have you been watching the news?" At those words, he leapt up without even needing to think about it. In his experience, 'have you been watching the news?' was the precursor to a body count, or at least an awkward discussion with the dry cleaner. He clamped the phone between his ear and shoulder while stuffing his legs into a pair of jeans.

"No. Why? What's going on?"

"There's another video. This one's, well, it's bad. Something happened at an overflow camp in California, and I'm not even going to try to describe it, you'll just have to watch it yourself, and, anyhow, everyone's gone kinda crazy. I think the protest started at the university, but people are getting caught up in it down here. They're losing it."

"Losing it how?" He stretched the phone cord over to the windows bisecting the brown wall, cringing until his eyes adjusted to the early morning light. People were out on the street, far more than usual for the hour, but it wasn't exactly a riot. Not knowing otherwise, he'd have guessed there'd been an accident somewhere up the road, what with cars stopped and frustrated drivers waving mobiles around.

Over his phone, he could hear Debbie's breath catch. "Could you come in early? I really don't feel safe here by myself. I'll clock out, give you my hours."

Ianto nodded. "Of course. Have you called the police?"

 _Shirt, there's a shirt around here somewhere._ He did a little pas de deux with the phone cord to avoid tripping over it as he unearthed the shirt from under the table. _Oh, look, a phone number on the hem._ He sighed. _How the fuck did that get there?_

"I did, asking if it was safe, and they put me on hold for half an hour before I gave up."

"Officer Woolworth?"

 _Right. Short, blonde, pin-up curls, heart-shaped ass, designated driver so she couldn't leave her friend._ He scribbled 'hairspray' on the notepad where he kept his shopping list. 

"I tried the cell number he gave you, but no answer. I'm thinking of closing, but the owners aren't answering either."

 _Closing?_ He halted mid-step. "It's that bad?" As if on cue, he heard glass breaking outside his own flat. "I'll be there in twenty minutes." 

Debbie exhaled relief then laughed, her embarrassment obvious even over the phone. "Thank you."

"Just doing my job, ma'am," he replied and was relieved when she laughed again. 

After cleaning his teeth, he splashed his face with hot water, running wet hands through his hair to get most of it pointing in the same general direction. Regular bleaching had left it stiff and more unmanageable than before, which was saying something. 

As a precaution, he took his Glock from his bag, loaded the magazine, and tucked it into the small of his back between his clean tee and the wrinkled shirt he'd thrown over it. He'd fought cannibals, overgrown insects, Cybermen, Daleks, hopped-up fish, even his own government. A street full of civilians upset about the latest Miracle news wasn't half as dangerous, but they were the least predictable. Never again was he going to enter into any situation, no matter how seemingly innocuous, without being prepared for the worst. 

Two women were arguing on the pavement outside his building. An almost identical scene greeted him a few doors down from the shop, though with more spittle and a man thrown into the fray for good measure. This lot was surrounded by a loose circle of looky-loos cheering them on, so he wasn't able to make out much besides "You go, girl!" and references to fire.

_What, no brimstone?_

The requisite Soulless were hanging about, just to make it look like an obscure German art film outtake, though it was hard to tell if they were actually part of the argument, what with those bloody masks. He'd never been much of a conspiracy theorist (especially after his paycheques were signed by conspiracy fact), but he was honestly starting to believe the Miracle was an overgrown promotional stunt by a mask-making company. Society was falling apart at the seams. Vaccinations had run out. Painkillers had become a sort of currency, with shelf-stable foods not far behind as transportation costs went through the roof. But those oddly incomplete masks were springing up like weeds.

Through the picture windows at the front of Espress Lane, Ianto saw a customer at the counter. But Debbie wasn't wearing her well-practised 'customer service is my #1 priority!' expression. The man was leaning in, way too close, and she was leaning back, practically climbing the espresso machine. Ianto made sure his shirt tail was clear of the Glock's grip before he opened the door.

"...businesses like this, taking our money, charging obscene prices for the bare necessities. It's robbery. And I demand, no, I have a _right_ to whatever I want from this place!" 

"Sir, unfortunately, I don't own the shop. I can't just give things away. I'd lose my job." She caught Ianto's eye for a half second, swallowing hard. An empty paper cup was clutched just a bit too tightly in her right hand, and both were shaking.

"You know what?" the man growled. "I think you have a real attitude problem. You could wind up being a Category 1 if you aren't careful!" He pounded the counter with his meaty fists, and the lids rattled on the glass display jars.

_And there's reasonable cause sorted._

"Hello," Ianto said in the amiable tone he'd once slathered on lost tourists with screaming children. The man spun around, eyes livid and red. He was either high or off his meds. "Hello, yes." Ianto raised a calming hand. "You have a point. Times like these, we should choose our attitude." He stressed the last carefully, nodding towards the break room where the training poster was still hanging with some of Eric's more choice comments scribbled across the bottom. "I think a free coffee is a great idea. Why _toss_ aside an opportunity to help a man _fishing_ for a bit of civility on a day like today?"

Behind the man's shoulder, he saw Debbie's eyes light up as she remembered the owners' beloved team-building exercise with the stuffed fish. "You know, you're right!" She poured a cup (decaf, Ianto couldn't help but notice) and offered it to the man with all the forced effervescence of a children's show presenter. "Here you go, sir. Have a cuppa, on me." But as he reached for it, she squeezed the sides, popping the lid free to fling the scalding liquid onto his face. 

"Jesus, you bitch! You fucking bitch!" Meaty Paws went down screaming, and Ianto cheerfully finished the job, kicking him to his back. Not that being prone stopped the shouting. "I'm calling the fucking police! I'm going to tear your head off and shit down your neck!"

With a heavy sigh, Ianto shoved his foot centre mass to hold the man down, but that was only going to work for a moment. The guy was big. Big enough to imbalance him and make a bad situation worse if he didn't maintain control. Knowing he had no other choice, Ianto drew his gun, racking the slide. The sound was far more effective than verbal threats. Meaty Paws froze. "Thank you. Much easier to have a civilised conversation this way."

"I know you!" he snarled, swiping coffee away from his red, blistering cheeks. "You work here. I'm going to get your ass fired." 

"I would expect you'd try to have all of me fired, not just one part, but colour me pedantic." 

"You, you--"

"Ah, ah!" Ianto gave the gun a sharp wave towards the door, once, twice, then aimed at the man again, sighting down the barrel like it hadn't been two years since he'd last used one as a negotiating tool. "You can call the police just as easily from the street." 

He lumbered to his feet, aiming a punch that was so telegraphed Ianto would've laughed, but he wasn't interested in poking the bear. Instead, he didn't so much as a flinch, and the man stalked to the door without following through.

"I'm going to sue!"

"Do have a lovely afternoon!" Ianto shouldered the door closed, Debbie tight on his heels

"That was half an hour," she said, cranking the lock closed before pulling at the shades.

"Sorry. I got held up by a gaggle of the masked menace asking me if I missed my soul." He waved her out of the way as he slid one of the straight-backed chairs against the door for reinforcement. 

"What did you tell them?"

"That I sometimes long for a bit of James Brown." Debbie froze, yanked down the ruched hem of her Espress Lane t-shirt, then looked up at him. Her pupils were dilated, slightly unfocused. Not good. "So, tell me what's going on." He touched her shoulder, intentionally brushing her neck with the pad of his thumb. 

The second it took to process the inappropriateness of him touching her like that had the intended effect of postponing her break-down. "It's some sort of organised thing." She pointed in the general direction of the campus. "People are meeting up at Queen's Park to go together and take down the overflow camp outside of Guelph."

"Good," he said. "That's away from here." But before he could say more, he was interrupted by the sound of a crash in front of the building. Gun pointed to the floor, Ianto lifted a shade so he could peer outside. A car had attempted to turn onto their street but instead collided with a car parked in the wrong direction. The drivers were climbing out, all snarled faces and rude gestures. The throng that had been watching the arguing trio swept to the road like a school of hipster fish just as the parked driver threw a punch at the man who'd struck his car. As Ianto was about to turn to report all this to Debbie, a fist came straight for his face, stopped only by the heavy storefront glass. At the other end of the fist was Meaty Paws. He'd acquired an entourage, and they all looked equally displeased with the state of the economy.

Ianto jumped back, pausing long enough to flip the store sign from "Open" to "Closed." Then, splaying a hand in the small of Debbie's back, he steered them both towards the break room. Thankfully, she didn't need much encouragement, breaking into a run before he could shove his gun back into his waistband.

"What do we have to do with any of this?" she asked, pulling her things out of her locker. "And where did you get a gun, anyhow?"

Ianto shook his head, slamming the door behind them and latching it. "In answer to both questions, I never underestimate the stupidity of excited people in large groups." 

"What are we going to do? What if they break in?" Something heavy thudded against the outside windows, and she flinched, but he didn't even break stride. His lips tingled, hairs standing to attention on his arms and the back of his neck as he hauled the break room table against the door to reinforce it. Everything began to feel choreographed, ordained, like knowing the ground would be under his feet each time he stepped.

"No longer an 'if.'" He waved to the back door. "We need to leave. Did the owners insure the place?"

"I guess." Debbie shrugged, then her eyes bugged out when the thud became the tinkle of broken glass scattering onto lino. "I hope."

"Set the alarm." 

"Why? They're already inside." More glass shattered, and it was only a question of whether it was one of the refrigerated cases the other window. 

"Maybe that will startle some sense into them." 

Debbie stood there, frozen except for her eyes volleying between the alarm panel and the vandals destroying their store. 

"Go on," he encouraged.

She took a deep breath, stepped over to the alarm and, with as much determination as could be granted to mashing buttons, enabled the alarm system. On the wall directly above them, one of three alarms began to sound, the shrill tone one step shy of the threshold of pain. Debbie bent over, ears covered, and Ianto used her momentary distraction to eject the videotape from the security camera recorder. He tucked it away in his bag as he directed her to the delivery door, pausing just long enough to confirm the alley was clear before urging her outside.

"We should call the owners, you think?" she asked as he locked the door behind them.

"Good idea." He scrolled through the back routes he'd planned to use if anyone ever came for him at the shop, though, at this point, the goal wasn't so much to leave Toronto as to get away from the chaos. Thankfully, the alley appeared to be empty, the rabble sticking to the streets. 

"Where are we going?" She had broken into a half jog to keep up with him.

"My place."

"Don't you live close to the uni―"

"―Just trust me."

She nodded, yanking her phone from her purse and scrolling through the contacts as she walked. Through the corner of his eye, he saw that her hands were still shaking, enough that the only way she was going to successfully call anyone was if they stopped moving. And they couldn't do that. They needed to get inside. Somewhere Debbie could breathe. 

"The call can wait a few minutes. We need to brave the mob." He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close. It was as much to give her a sense of security as it was to make them a smaller target.

"Okay." She clutched the phone to her chest, and they hurried to the end of the alley, exiting two blocks west of the store. It was just as crowded, but at least these people weren't in full-on mob formation. Yet.

"I feel a bit like a salmon," she said as they forded a clutch of people walking the other direction.

"So long as there's not a grizzly bear at the end of the stream, we're good."

Debbie snorted. "Humans, when threatened by a stronger predator, will gather to defend their packs. Observe the formations as they close ranks around the weakest in the herd."

"Thank you, Ms. Attenborough. Left up here."

He ruled out the idea of hauling her into a fireman's carry, figuring the increase in speed might not be worth the loss of her pride. With a little persistence, they managed to get to his building in decent time. They entered through the back, avoiding the crowd of people starting to assemble out front.

"It's... different than I expected," she said, blinking owlishly after he flicked on the lights.

"Wait here," Ianto replied, forgoing an answer to wave her to the sofa. He locked the door behind them and, out of precaution more than any real need, gave the room a visual scan while hauling down the blinds. Brown paint and brick still just as drab as expected, nothing out of place. Except Debbie. She fidgeted nervously while leaving another message for the owners, blowing flyaway curls out of her eyes. He was fidgeting, too, riding an adrenaline high that was pounding in his veins at ten times the strength of anything he'd ever felt from jogging. It was pure and sweet, and, fuck, he had missed it. 

"Normally," he said as he faced Debbie again, "I would offer coffee." She laughed, a little hysterically, but she'd earned every bit of it by that point. Hands on his hips, he added, "How does a beer sound?"

"Oh, please."

He turned and walked over to the kitchen. "So, my place is different than you expected?"

"Well, it's pretty spartan."

"I've told you before, I like things simple." He ducked into the refrigerator, moving things around to get at the case at the back of the top shelf. 

"Simple, but well-armed." 

"Touché." He collected two cold bottles of Molson, kicking the door closed with his boot. Swinging around smoothly to the counter, he tilted the bottles, one after the other, and knocked their caps off. They made a satisfying ring as they landed on the floor.

"Nice trick."

"I have many talents." 

She frowned. "And many guns?"

He sat down next to her on the grey sofa, and she nearly snatched her beer from his hand, taking a long, deep drink, before falling backwards with a sigh and a thump of spine against cushion.

"I have just the one," he added before taking a more measured drink from his own bottle. It was a monumental effort to keep from bouncing his knee, but the energy wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, besides being caged up in a one room apartment. 

"That's like being 'a little pregnant,'" she replied, in a voice like the one she typically reserved for Eric's mood swings. 

Inwardly, he bristled a little at the association, but replied, "Seeing as that oaf isn't cleaning our brains out from under his fingernails, I think it was worth the risk."

"If he reports you, you could get into a metric shitload of trouble. And so could the store."

He tilted one side of his mouth down in genuine contemplation then shook his head. "I think the police will have other priorities." _And when I destroy the videotape, that'll make it his word against ours._

"True." She settled the bottle between her knees, clasping the neck with both hands as if she'd just confirmed it was the source of the planet's gravitational field. "Thank you, by the way. For my brains not being under his fingernails."

"You're welcome." 

They passed a few moments without speaking, Debbie focused entirely on her beer, Ianto trying to make out what the protesters outside were chanting. It was dreadful, whatever it was, any sort of catchy rhythm evidently as unwilling to cling to the words as water to a duck's back. Blessedly, the noise was dying off as the crowd marched toward Guelph (or, he reckoned, some sort of rail transport, because Guelph was a hell of walk). 

In a totally expected turn of events, it was Debbie who spoke first. She shifted in her seat enough that she was facing Ianto, one leg bent onto the sofa while the other stayed hung over the front. "So, where'd you learn to be so calm in a crisis?"

 _Lots of crises._ Ianto shrugged. "I suppose it's just how I am."

"No way!" She shook her head furiously. "You are totally impulsive, Mr. 'Can I borrow your laptop?'."

"Exceptional circumstance." He smirked into the mouth of his bottle as he took another drink. 

"Well, I think you're exceptional."

Ianto gave her a polite little bow, one hand over his heart. "Thank you." 

"And so am I, for hiring you." With a satisfied smack of the lips, she finished off her Molson and waved the bottle at him. He nodded respectfully at her accomplishment, putting his half-empty drink on the floor with every intention of asking if she wanted another. But as he turned toward her to do that, he found himself yanked against a very soft, very pliable mouth. And that was exactly how this was supposed to end, right? Crisis averted, have a little grope and tickle to come down from the high. For a split second, Ianto let himself lapse into the familiarity of that routine, fabric rustling, warm skin a reward for curious fingers. Then his brain kicked back into gear. It wasn't Jack's mouth; it was Debbie's mouth. Debbie who was kissing him. Debbie with one hand in his hair, the other tugging at the hem of his tee shirt.

Immediately, he reached out, wrapping his hands around hers to carefully disengage them. "Deb―"

"―Oh, God, I'm so sorry!" She tried to jerk away, but Ianto tightened his grip. "That was… I… so fucking inappropriate. Oh, shit." She glanced around the room, eyes wide like a panicked animal hunting for a hidey-hole.

He squeezed her hands gently, unable to hold back a laugh at the mental image, but at least resisting the urge to launch into his own version of the nature show narration. "Relax, I'm not bothered."

"You're not? Because you should be. I'm your boss, Evan." Her curls bobbed with all the energy she was using to explain herself. "I'd be angry if my boss kissed me out of the blue. Actually, I might be sick, but that's beside the point."

He tugged on her hands, drawing her attention back his way. "Believe me when I tell you, kissing my boss is not a problem."

"Then what?"

"You've had a stressful morning, and you finished that bottle rather quickly."

"Oh…" She stared down at where their hands were joined. "I should've known you would be chivalrous. So, this is the part where you politely turn me down then we both pretend it never happened."

"No." He let go of one hand, tipping her chin up so she was looking him in the eyes. "This is the part where I ask you why you wanted to do this."

"I…" Debbie trailed off, looking to the windows, then back at him. It took her a long time to put the thought together, shifting uneasily as she tried to voice it. "It's just, well, today has been pretty shitty, and I wanted something good. At least for a minute, before we have to get back to reality."

Ianto tilted his head at the exterior wall. "You wanted to forget what's going on out there."

She nodded.

"Okay, then." With a smile, he let go of her hands. He took his glasses off, setting them on the table a safe distance away from the sofa, then picked up her hands and very pointedly returned them to where they'd been a few moments before. "Let's violate some HR policies, ma'am."

**

"The Republic of China is cutting off all foreign travel in 48 hours. Citizens having difficulty securing a return to their native country within that window are advised to contact their embassy for assistance. Several countries are openly investigating the possibility of deporting all foreign nationals regardless of residential status. Mexico's United Nations ambassador has submitted a resolution to bar this practice…"

"Hey," Debbie said, rustling on the sofa. She moved her arms out from under the blanket he'd placed over her after she'd gone to sleep, then scooted into a half-upright position against the arm. "What time is it?" 

"Well past dinner time." Having already paused the streaming news feed he'd been watching, Ianto gestured to the laptop in front of him. "I had a feeling you wouldn't mind me borrowing it." It'd been a week since his stint at the cybercafé, but it was no less exciting to get connected to the world again. It wasn't quite as good as the sex had been―Debbie was as enthusiastic about that as she seemed to be about everything else in her life, which more than made up for the first-time awkwardness―but it was close.

"No, it's fine. At least I wasn't trying to use it when you borrowed it." He stuck two fingers up at her, and she flipped him off in return. "What's happening?"

"Death still on holiday. Mass hysteria. Bob Geldof planning benefit concert." She smiled, but it quickly stretched into a yawn. "Feeling better?" he asked when she'd finished.

"Feeling a little awkward."

"About what?" He knew exactly what she meant, but he did have an appearance to maintain. She swept a hand down the length of the blanket, indicating her otherwise naked body beneath it. "Oh, you find that being human is awkward?" He did his best to say that without imitating Jack, but it was pretty difficult considering it was a direct quote. 

"I can never tell if you're joking."

"I only joke about serious things, Debbie." He left his table and went to the sofa, finding a space to sit near her feet. "Humans have basic needs: food, water, touch. We don't knot ourselves up if we have tap water instead of bottled, or if we choose a sandwich over a four course meal. So it doesn't make sense to play head games with ourselves about sex." Did it sound convincing enough saying it without wearing that bloody greatcoat?

Evidently yes, because her jaw sagged a little in mock indignation. "Are you suggesting I'm a sandwich?"

"Well, if anything, I'm your sandwich, but I'm good with that." He fished under the blanket for her feet and retrieved one, kneading it idly. "Just because this wasn't a candlelit table for two in a French restaurant doesn't mean that it didn't do just as good a job of satisfying our needs."

"Oh, that's good." Debbie dropped her head back onto the armrest. "And also underhanded. 'Satisfying needs' isn't exactly romantic."

"No, but just think how romantic your next candlelit dinner will be by comparison." He lifted both her feet up so he could scoot further onto the sofa. The cushions were warm from her body, and he relaxed into them, relishing the feel of it against the bare skin of his back. Basic needs went both ways, after all.

She shook her head. "I'm afraid how much sense you're making."

"I reckon something should make sense, just for the sheer novelty."

She nodded to her laptop. "I take it you watched the video, then."

Ianto shrugged, anything more demonstrative feeling somehow wrong. Then again, what was the proper reaction to watching people being burnt alive while Torchwood filmed it? "Camps worldwide are being temporarily suspended until the incident can be investigated," he replied in his best newscaster voice.

"What does that mean?"

His chest heaved with a sigh. "It means that the problem is not that it happened, but that someone caught it on video. And they're going to make this token gesture of concern until they can figure out how to spin it." His stomach churned, reminding him he wasn't quite ready to discuss it further. Not until he'd finished processing it. Torchwood was coming out of hiding. All other traces were still disappearing as fast as they could be posted, one literally got erased as he read it. But this video? Untouched. Torchwood had roped it off, aimed blinking lights at it, and dared the world not to respond.

Which meant they were out of ideas. They were desperate. Dying. And he'd let a week pass doing nothing to reach them, a week in which people at this camp, and possibly hundreds, if not thousands more... No, he reminded himself, he'd spent another week alive. A week not waltzing into that oven beside Dr. Vera Juarez. He'd already died once because Torchwood was out of options. 

_What the fuck were you thinking, considering getting in touch with them?_

"Are you hungry? I'm starving." He leapt up from the sofa. Now was not the time to work himself into another fit of anger and regret, not with Debbie around. 

Thankfully, she didn't press him to elaborate. Instead, she motioned to the refrigerator. "I guess a sandwich would be appropriate."

The joke made it possible to laugh, so he did, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. But it broke the feeling of dread building in the room. He took two plates out of the ugly brown cupboards and sat them on the work surface then began rummaging the refrigerator. "I have turkey, some cheddar, and..." He pulled open the crisper. "Yes, a head of romaine." He pulled it into the light and grimaced. "Right, the outer leaves are a bit limp, but we should be able to salvage enough of it to give ourselves a token vegetable."

Debbie wrapped the blanket around herself and stood up, taking shuffling steps over to lean on the counter across from him. It was comfortably like being at work, other than the part where he was in nothing but a pair of black tracksuit bottoms and she'd subbed a blue cotton fleece blanket for the black Espress Lane apron. "Do you have any mustard?"

"Dijon or brown?" 

"Either." Ianto grabbed the Dijon and placed it on the counter, grabbing the end of a loaf of wholemeal bread and unwrapping it. Debbie snagged the thin crust he'd been avoiding and tore off a bite. Mouth still full, she asked, "Mind if I shower?"

"If you don't mind the fact that a water gun has more pressure." He gestured in the direction of the bathroom door, and her head spun, following. She nodded. "Feel free to use the towels hanging in there. I just put them out."

"Thanks."

"Oh, and I, well, here..." He put down the knife he'd been intending to use to spread the mustard and stepped out from behind the counter long enough to show her where he'd gathered up her clothes.

"Are you for real?" she asked as he handed her the stack he'd folded while she slept. 

"If you'd rather dance around naked trying to pick them up yourself, I can put them back where I found them."

She yanked them to her chest, and the blanket nearly fell in the process. He smirked, and she glared, but it was perforated by a grin. Clasping the clothes with one arm, she lifted up the hem of the blanket and swept it aside like a train, then marched imperiously into the bathroom.

**

By the time Debbie returned, Ianto had their sandwiches assembled and set on the small table. He'd moved the laptop aside to make room for the plates and had filled a bowl with a couple of apples and an orange of dubious age which he'd collected from the crisper. Normalcy, or at least a reasonable facsimile.

Debbie sat down opposite him, her hair hidden under a twist of towel. "So whose Wi-Fi are you stealing?" 

"The gym next door."

"Did I hear right?" She lifted up her sandwich and took a huge bite, eyes rolling in pleasure as she chewed. "Damn, I didn't realise how hungry I was. They've cut off travel?"

He nodded, raising a finger until he could finish swallowing his own bite. "China did, a few smaller countries are following suit. First world is being a bit more lackadaisical, but all non-essential travel is shut down." He paused, stomach churning unhappily at having food forced into it. But he hadn't eaten all day, and another in the list of side effects of being brought back from the dead was that he tended to get either angry or emotional when his blood sugar was low. That was fairly common, at least, but it'd never bothered him before. At the moment, he really resented it. "Essentials like food, medicine, people returning to their country of residence, those are still allowed, but that's about it."

A blob of mustard had squeezed out on her fingertip, and she wiped it onto the back of her sandwich. "That sucks. First someone exposes that they've basically set up death camps, now they're making entire countries into prisons?"

"I can understand the travel ban, actually."

"How? It's a huge violation of our liberty."

He shrugged, but, that much at least, was a decision he'd have made himself under the same circumstances. "Damage control. Fixed population means fixed needs, gives you a chance to get ahead without the red eye delivering another mutant virus from Wichita."

"And you make it much harder for Category 1's to avoid the ovens. They can't hide in their own homes if the bigwigs have their way. Now, they can't leave the country. We're stuck." She shook her head angrily. "No. I really don't like it." His sandwich was even less appealing than before, but he willed himself to take another bite. The reality was, it wasn't going to be much longer before fresh foods became a luxury for everyone, not just a budget consideration. He should appreciate it while he could. "All this has made me wonder, though." What little digestive margin of error Ianto possessed was lost as his stomach sank.

Debbie was going to bring up Torchwood; he was sure of it. It was all the rage among the pundits, the lack of online evidence making it all the more intriguing. He sat the sandwich aside, dreading the question but putting on a bland expression. "What are you wondering?"

"Where'd you get that scar on your back?"

His surprise was blatant. He was too out of sorts to keep hiding it. Thankfully, she seemed to be as glad as he was to get off current events because the tension had melted from her face. 

"Which one?" he turned, straining his eyes over his shoulder.

"Wow, I'd only noticed the one earlier. Um..." She squinted one eye, head cocked as she did the mental gymnastics to map it out. "Lower left."

"Car accident." So convenient when the truth fit the lie. Not enough that he was going to forgive those bastards in the Arcanis Servitorus for running him off the road outside Caerphilly, but it was handy. 

"Was that the accident? The one that made you decide to come back to Canada?"

 _Torchwood was one long accident. Is._ "Yes. I got ejected from my car, landed in a mound of shale, piece of it stabbed me." A piece that had come within millimetres of paralysing him, or worse. 

"Oh, man! And the rest of them, more shale?"

Giving up on the sandwich, he reached out for the orange. It wouldn't be as heavy, and at least he'd get some sort of vitamin in his system. "Scars particularly fascinating to you?" he asked before biting into the peel, the bitter oils misting his tongue. It was a bit dried out but still edible.

"Well, they're going to be much rarer now, aren't they?"

"I don't know." He shrugged, working his thumb under the bite mark to peel away the skin. "They say people are healing slowly. Very slowly." 

"Then I'm weird, but it's like a tattoo, you know?" She'd disassembled one half of the sandwich and was taking it in layers now, nibbling on the rough slice of cheddar. "It tells a story. We've known each other for two years, and I still don't know diddly-squat about you." He cast his eyes very pointedly to the sofa, and she waved the cheese like a white flag of surrender. "OK, yes, I know a lot about one thing in particular now, however, that's not what I mean. How about the scar on your shoulder?"

"Animal attack," he said. 

"What kind of animal?"

"Big. Toothy. Unhappy." 

She laughed. "Seriously, what happened?"

Deciding it probably wouldn't be a good idea to explain Weevils―or the night he'd been blowing Jack in an alley after taking one down, and how that'd been interrupted because they hadn't finished before the sedation wore off―he went with the standard escaped zoo animal explanation. Always a head-scratcher how well that had worked, seeing as the nearest zoo had been in Bristol... 

**

The two of them chatted comfortably for several more hours, catching snippets of news off the Internet to see what was happening in Guelph. The protest had gone off more or less as Ianto'd expected: a few people arrested, a lot of bombast for the news cameras, and fuck all changed by the time the tide began to ebb to Toronto. Despite the enormous commotion the crowds had kicked up earlier in the day, the streets were eerily quiet at bedtime, at least in his neighbourhood. A splinter faction had kept the enthusiasm going over by Debbie's place, and, in a moment where courtesy outweighed common sense, he'd suggested she stay the night at his. Actually, it had been rather more like insisting, but she'd taken it in good stride, teasing him about being a Cro Magnon even as she helped him pull out the sleeper and freshen the sheets. 

When the lights went out, the uncanny easiness between them evaporated. It was much more difficult sorting out who was going to sleep on which side than it had been manoeuvring into a position which made her come faster. And even after the trial of sorting sides, blankets properly divided and pillows in place, the gap in the mattress between them was as real as a third person sharing the bed.

And, honestly, someone _was_ there: Jack. Ianto was sharing a bed with someone, actually sleeping through the night with another person for the first time since Jack. And in that empty space he saw all those chances he'd let slip by in the name of protecting himself.

Patricia, a tuxedo store manager who'd never had a one night stand before. She'd admitted as much before they ever got to her place, and in the process of explaining why she was doing it, they'd really hit it off. They'd talked for hours, and by the time they'd moved to her bed, they were too tired for anything other than a little mutual masturbation. But it'd been great, and she'd dozed off in his arms. It'd broken his heart to wake her, to leave. At her door, she'd thanked him.

Eric, not of Espress Lane fame, who Ianto'd chatted up a half dozen times before getting him in bed, and who'd kicked him out before they'd even taken their shirts off. Ianto'd given him the "not a relationship person" speech and had more than just words thrown back at him.

Susan, the waitress with the four year old son, whose friendship (and diner) Ianto'd had to give up on when he realised they were starting to get close.

And Trey, of course, the most recent in the line. Gorgeous, smart, and too bloody understanding to deserve someone like Evan Hughes.

Now, Debbie was in Ianto's bed. Hell, she was in his apartment. To that point, it'd only been him, a few delivery men, and building maintenance. But she was here, and she was sweet, and funny, and he liked her. He liked her a lot. 

It could be something. 

Only, it couldn't. Because he still didn't know if someone was looking for him, and, in a cosmically stupid moment of enthusiasm, he'd actually been contemplating going back to the very organisation responsible for him being on the run in the first place.

But he missed Torchwood. He missed it so much it ached, an addict craving just one more hit. He'd do anything, take any risk, to be part of it and do something to bring this whole Miracle mess to an end. He also knew what that would lead to. The evidence had been streamed to his stinging eyes in full colour. As he'd watched that video, he'd almost felt the pain of being burnt alive, aware, another victim of that addiction. And, God, the poor bastard stuck on the other side of the oven door, helpless to do anything but record the cremation and rage into a video camera, probably not even knowing at the time if he'd survive to release it.

Both of them, Dr. Juarez and Rex Matheson, both of them were Torchwood. Out there tilting at windmills while Ianto lay warm in his bed, the biggest threat to his life a thug with an attitude problem. He'd been given a second, no, a third chance at life, and he was wasting it. 

_It's not your responsibility._

But it was. It was because he could do something about it. That was how he'd been raised, or, perhaps more accurately, had rebelled to be. And he knew now, knew beyond any doubt, that the overflow camps were apocalyptically wrong. Maybe he'd be signing his own death warrant by rejoining Torchwood, but he could find some other way to help, couldn’t he?

"Evan?" Debbie startled him from his thoughts. "You're awake, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he replied, curious, but heart in his throat. He held his breath, the room around them seeming to echo the sound of his inhale. 

"I can't stop thinking about all this," Debbie said, that same tremble in her voice that he'd heard on the phone. "I feel so useless."

Exhaling, he dared to scoot a little closer, seeking out her hand from among the covers. "I know what you mean." He gave a friendly squeeze. She didn't return it, instead wrapping her fingers around his palm. It felt good. _Too good._ He knew he should pry himself away, but even thinking about actually doing it made him angry. 

"A cup of coffee's not gonna save the world." 

"Probably not."

This time, she scooted closer, the mattress squeaking as her weight shifted. She was close enough that her elbow touched his, hands still together. "With all the rules, people are going to have to start hiding in basements or attics. It's going to be like Anne Frank. Maybe worse. I mean that church just barely kept them out."

"What?" He had a sinking feeling he knew what she was going to say, but it was entirely possible St. Simon's wasn't the only church running an underground hospital.

"Saint something or other, over by Bathurst Station." It was like a blow to the gut, though he didn't know why he should care about them specifically. "Apparently the police went there this morning after getting reports they were harbouring Category 1's. Didn't you see that when you bogarted my laptop?"

"No. What happened?"

"They didn't have a warrant, so the priest refused to let them in."

The political map unfolded quickly. They'd have to request a warrant, which would probably take a few days with the volume of work the courts had to handle post-Miracle, and since no one's life was actually in peril. They'd probably hold off exercising it until the fuss died down about the camps, maybe two weeks with the world's attention span. But, after that, nothing could stop them.

Nothing except a man who knew an awful lot about hiding things. 

Ianto's eyes were long since adjusted to the dark, and he could see Debbie quite clearly now that she was so close. She was looking at him expectantly, and he realised he hadn't answered her. 

"Good for them."

"Yeah. That takes cojones. I think I'd rather stick to something a little less likely to get me arrested."

He chuckled, and acting purely on instinct, he tugged her closer. "I'm sure the right thing will turn up when you're ready." She nodded into his shoulder, and, just like that, they were curled together in his bed. Maybe it was foolish to let someone in, but he'd been foolish about much graver things. It was a risk worth taking, and a risk he could afford now that he'd scaled back his plans for saving the world to something a bit more reasonable. 

Tomorrow, he had the opening shift at whatever was left of Espress Lane. It was only a half day, which would work out great. After work, Evan Hughes was going to do something pretty damned radical.

He was going to church.

The End... for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next two parts of the series are drafted, and I promise, this story won't get orphaned. But I'm painfully slow at editing (and writing in general). Therefore, I'm doing NaNo again this year (logic!fail) on an original fic. I expect to get back to work on this series in December. Thank you for reading, kudos and comments!


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